This one was a loooong time in the works. And it’s amazing! It’s not only a tribute to a classic early-90’s pop album, viagra it’s also an exercise in variation… of composition, of instrumentation, even of expropriation. These are total re-invention of the original. Track-by-track. Enjoy!

Power und Beauty began as an unintentional adventure through the mystical fields of harmonious sisterly collaboration. Karli and Caroline who had been singing together for four years joined up with Anna and Sarah of Olive Green. They started with a few songs Karli had written and a few from Anna. There was an effortless blending of voices and hearts. To these four musical women, nothing could be more powerful or beautiful than purely joined female voices in harmony and melody. Vanity aside, Power und Beauty is what they named this new project.

With choral experience, piano lessons, years of performance and a love for writing, the girls brought unique talents to the table. Sarah Moyer pioneered the use of a vegetable steamer as percussion. Caroline Fowler explored the multi-faceted uses of the battery powered Yamaha keyboard while playing the tambourine. Anna Collins-Wakeman mastered the duel glockenspiel and shaker technique. Karli Fairbanks reinvented the infamous accordion waltz. All multi-tasking with back and forth melody and harmonies, each one had a big task to conquer.

Fantastical childish musicality dancing together in unity with angelic immortal feminine vocals. All in front of a Bavarian backdrop, clothed in knee high socks and suspenders. Power und Beauty had fatefully and whimsically prepared themselves to conquer the world.

Greatest It is a collection of favorites from six innovative labels, those being Upitup, Proot, Egotwister, WM, Cock Rock Disco and yours truly. We’re all releasing this at the same time in order to bring each other new blood, new fans, new admirers, new enemies. As we’re all in the habit of putting out top-notch free music on a regular basis it seemed natural to go through our back catalogues and show off some of our weirdness, collectively. We hope you enjoy!

Bakers At Dawn is Marcus Sjöland, who lives in Malmö, Sweden, where he works in a record store and spends most of his remaining waking hours obsessing about or playing music. He lists among his influences The Freed Weed collection by Sebadoh, Graham Coxton, Eric’s Trip, and Neutral Milk Hotel. In fact it was after discovering the latter’s song “Everything Is”, and listening to it repeat, that he got inspired to write music of his own.

Also he enjoys The Bon Scott Years as well as The Melvins. However there’s always another part of him that would like to play super brainy prog built on complicated math equations, and then process all the sounds with various spacey effects and vocoders.

He’s released numerous cd-r’s and has put out a number of internet releases as well, including last year’s ‘As Is’, which is also freely downloadable. Also he plays in a band called The Argument, check ’em out!

Robin Barstow got his first synth at the age of 5, which he’s since modified with light-sensitive modulation. He started sequencing at 12. Influencing him at the time was a lot of prog and psychedelic music from the 60’s and 70’s such as Nektar, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd, The Man Band, but also things like Tonto’s Expanding Head Band as well as Tangerine Dream.

Now at the age of 25, and still living in his native country of Norway, he works as a sound engineer when he’s not circuitbending or skiing or travelling. He lives for a good coffee and quiet surroundings, the latter he attributes to living in a noisy studio within a noisy city.

It’s Circular was partially inspired by his recent fascination for house organs, “those big enormous ugly things” of the 70’s and 80’s. He’s currently building an octopus-like midi controller to use live, and he’s always searching for “that special” sawtooth wave.

Benjamín Z comes to us from Guadalajara, Mexico, where he trades his time as alternately a student (at a music conservatory), a dressmaker and an amateur barista.

In between he finds time to make lots of his own songs… a form of communication he prefers to talking. This collection is (surprisingly) his first… “I tried to remember all those important moments in my life from my childhood to these days and also I learned how to make a record by myself without dying or killing anybody in the attempt.”

Besides Volumina, he’s also in a lovely band called Antoine Reverb, as well he’s producing an album for Bosque Discoteca. And in the future him and Chi (the cat on the cover) hope to travel to many different countries and bring the love to everyone.

For our first project we did 30 artists in 30 days… now we tried 52 artists in 52 weeks, divided up into four parts. Those of course being Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.

The first artist started on the 21st of December, the first day of Winter which also happens to be the Solstice. They borrowed a headline out of that week’s news as the title to their 2-3 minute song and then had 7 days to complete it before they passed their creation on to the next artist, who continued where they had left off.We had some amazing musicians that took part. Winter was all over the map, stylistically, while Spring was much more acoustic, with real instruments and voices and such… Summer on the other hand was faster, harder, very rhythmic… and then Fall was a combination of things. Overall we’re very happy with the result of this year-long experiment, and we hope you enjoy it as well.

We started with Winter. A cold, harsh 0-12 months, depending on your geographic location. Or depending on your interests… if you live in Canada and you love snowboarding and chasing polar bears on your ice skates then it’s a wonderful time of year, of course.

Officially it’s only three months long though, giving us thirteen weeks, thirteen different artists with which to kick this thing off. We have quite a mix of styles in this set from hip-hop to electropop to the impossible to accurately describe.

With the fall of winter and the hiccup of daylight savings time behind us, our taxes files, our yearly vacation time used up already and our New Year’s resolutions long forgotten, we set to the tasks of re-populating the Earth and making beautiful music. For our Spring set we had a lovely string of more acoustic-based artists to brighten your weeks.

To help distract you from the summer heat, Peppermill brings you a season of over-the-top crazy beat magicians… if Spring was the equivalent to a delicate new monarch butterfly just freed from it’s winter cocoon, Summer is like a tyrannosaurs rex with a laser strapped to it’s chest.

Here we are in the Autumn, or Fall as we’re officially dubbing the season, with an assortment of artists from all walks of life handing off tunes of thanksgiving to one another. Or whatever their musical mood fancies. As always, everyone had a week to create their song before tagging off.

This album is a collection of old and new songs done by treeplanters, about treeplanting, and for the most part, for other treeplanters.

Not that everyone isn’t welcome to bask in our nostalgia, but to truly appreciate these tunes, one must actively take part in this silvi-culture. Other than a few exceptions, the artists who took part are veterans of the Canadian planting scene. These campfire classics are inspired by long days out on the “block”, working through the bugs and the rain and the difficult terrain and then coming back to camp, hot food, showers, and the companionship of the other boys and girls who help replant our country’s vast forests every Spring/Summer.

Below you’ll find the album of course, as well as a photo gallery from Hugh Stimson, a planting slang dictionary if the need arises to look up a word or phrase while listening to the songs, and also you’ll find links to some other websites if you want to read further. If you’re a musically gifted planter and have your own song you’d like to contribute, we’ll be doing another set for next season, so feel free to send them to us throughout the year. To all you others, come join us in the bush this season!

Cualquiera is Nacho Pintos, originally from Galicia, a cloudy, rainy and green land in the NW of Spain, hit by the atlantic ocean. He now lives in Barcelona and started to make music just to prove that anyone (cualquiera) with a computer can do it.

Nacho usually makes songs and sounds that try to reflect a very short moment, a micro-thought, the ones that vanish quickly, but somehow you can recall years later. While every tune has an explanation he prefers people make it out for themselves.

Five months in an isolated cabin can be dangerous. Too much time on your hands can be hazardous for the mental health, and after the first month we were all courting madness, behaving quite erratically.

Thankfully, we were equipped with weapons to stave of the slow approach of insanity. There were cellos, saxophones, guitars, moog synthesizers, bizarre eastern instruments, turntables, xylophones, mandolins, dulcimers, violins, keyboards, hand drums, microphones and all sorts of other musical devices of mayhem; a veritable arsenal of sonic destruction.

We recorded songs like sick animals possessed by some dark muse from the far reaches of space. We averaged a song a day, and came out of the winter with more than one hundred songs recorded, and about three times as many freestyle jams recorded. There was nothing else to do, no way to measure the days, except for the relentless flow of songs that poured out from us. For some weeks we would just do blues songs, other weeks were possessed by reggae, sometimes we would just spend days creating atonal noise collages. Creative process was the only thing that added any meaning to life in the cabin, so we created.

This collection represents some of our best tracks, and were hand picked to showcase the diversity of styles that we were juggling. Its only the smallest of drops in the bucket. We all met at tree planting camp, a creamshow in the rugged heights of the Malakwa Valley in Southern BC. It was some of the most dangerous land that any of us had ever seen, but the money was great.

After sensing a chemistry with eachother, we decided to hit an open mic jam at a local biker bar. The results were fantastic. People from all walks of life praised us, and that’s what led us to form a band. Unfortunately, the strain of being in a cabin together for so long strained the experience, and the band disbanded over the next tree planting season. There may be more in the future though, who knows.

A collection of unique instrumental hymns (with included lyrics) that listeners are encouraged to grace with their voices. With a few bonus vocal versions added to the end if you need some guidance. Share and rejoice!

While awaiting a number of projects to come to fruition, we here at Peppermill Records got pretty impatient and thusly looked outside our own planet system for new sounds to promote… more specifically we turned to the popular annual intergalactic radio program Sounds of the Universe and it’s controversial dj, the always engaging ex-Earthling Dr. John.

So we secured the rights in this system to release its recently aired 22nd episode, and here it is, one of the most dynamic and introspective volumes of Sounds Of The Universe in recent memory. Here’s the release notes from the GMDA:.

MISSION STATEMENT

It is the earnest hope of the Galaxy Media Distributation Association, that all information and cultural assimilation data be received with an open mind, regardless of planetary ethnicity, or solar sector bias. The sole purpose of spreading the jewels of deep space culture, from species to species, is to help bring about a widespread understanding that may help to foster interplanetary understanding and compassion. Too many Sligtheniq have suffered from the cruelty of artistic genocide, too many Hrefniaw from the cold touch of intergalactic poetry critics . . . . and far too many wars have been waged in the name of fashion supremacy. All data included in this months programming is to be received with an open mind, and too be understood for what it really is; a rare glimpse into the hearts and souls of farflung craftsmen, who all share a reverence for the muses, a reverence which could be the only thing that binds all races together.

Recorded, 32889 ag, via Psylink by llolololllolollololol Holdings Incorporated, with permission from High Sziaer Hreythicnic. This recording was distributed under contract by Solar Dragon Inc, and broadcast from the invisible masters of the SOL system.

Recorded by chance, 21111 ag, on mercenary station-6 of the Freth System, by sonic photographer Yuri. It was, and still is the most clear and definitive reproduction of the Galtruu’s desolate cries and is distributed by Solar Dragon, in partnership with Sif-Saf Holdings Inc.

Recorded by Seth-Seth, 42778 ag, on Fren-Flez of the Slith-Szie system. All recordings and distributation managed by Heti-Hati and the Infinite Joy Inc. This was to be Seth-Seth’s last album before a tragic over indulgence took his life one revolution later. A galactically tragic moment, indeed.

Recorded by chance, 109 ag, on Hiath, by an early Silth sonic photographer, who’s origin and life story has long since faded into obscurity. The only thing left of this revolutionary artist’s work is the religiously accurate recordings of the musical space-ships, which have been passed down from revolution to revolution. This recording in particular is the oldest example of this work. The quality is vey grainy, but this recording is priceless based on its antiquity.

Recorded by the Silth Embassy for the Zantaar-Liiz in partnership with the Order of the Reoccurence, 1278 ag, in hopes of resummoning the Zentaar-Liiz. This recording in particular was broadcast with such a powerful level of amplitude, that it was necessary for the Silth to tap the power of their sun to project it to the furthest reaches of space. The process left their sun drained and weak, and led to the ultimate downfall of the Silth, when their sun flickered out five revolutions later. A true testament of their dedication to the musical space ships. Later reproductions are managed and distributed by Solar Dragon Inc.

“Thank you for you time. It is our hope that this presentation has helped you to understand the necessity of intergalactic media distributation as the main resource available to us for maintaining tolerance and justice from system to system. May Zentaar-Liiz return again and grace us with more of their majestic insights. Join us next time for the lengthy, but enrapturing sounds of the Weeeeiiiiiiooooo and other compositions by the Frengik Nation.”

“When I was a wee lad in the throws of a tumultuous semester at college, which mostly found me in the back corners of smoky bars and seedy coffee houses, I sometimes found refuge in a small group of musicians who would “piggy-back”. Piggybacking, in musical terms, is a form of improvisation (not to be confused with “jamming”, which basically has no foundation in any cohesive thought outside of playing chops) where solo-ists expound on previous solo-ists. I would say it’s the musical equivalent of the old creative-writing exercise: one person writes three words, the next person writes three words, and so on to finish a story.

With all of that said, here is another take on this creative endeavor. “30 Days” is a project put together by 30 musicians over 30 days – one taking over where the other stopped. Sort of passing-the-baton, to mix metaphors. For now, the artists have made this collaboration absolutely free to you, the listener. (You may download the entire collection as a zip-file, or individually… but make sure to click through the song links to really get a feel for the project.)”